Some people are all talk. A guy from Point was selling a van the other day.
It seemed like a good wagon so I was interested. Especially so as he had stated he would accept £3,000 for it or the nearest offer.
So I went all the way to Portvoller to see him. Great van. Good nick and long MOT. I told him, however, that I just didn’t have £3,000. He again said he would take a near offer. I went over and stood right beside him but he still wouldn’t accept my offer of £500. I couldn’t be any nearer. He was all talk.
My mate Donald also talks nonsense. He was on that Ancestry website and now he is convinced that he is descended from French nobility. We laugh at him saying that he is the Count of Monte Cristo but he says that count was actually Italian. He is now obsessed with the idea he is a modern-day count.
His wife tells me that he is also obsessed with online shopping. She says she thinks Donald does all his shopping online just so he can keep clicking on “Your Account”.
All the talk about Brexit sickens me too. For all these months, I have been saying it is all hot air and that nothing bad would happen. It would be like the Millennium Bug where we were all being sucked dry by crooks posing as computer analysts who said we needed their expensive services or our computers would melt before our very eyes.
I could not afford £70 so I had to face the consequences on January 1 2000. That black day we all dreaded for years beforehand when …nothing happened.
After midnight I flicked the switch and what happened? Flick all. Maybe Brexit will be the same. I hate to admit it but I think it’s going to be a mess. I’m done arguing against preparing for Brexit. At the weekend, a dossier was leaked showing what the government expects to happen after the scariness at the end of October. No, not Halloween. Brexit. Food rationing. Fuel shortages. Lack of medicines.
There is no way I want my family to suffer when the disaster called Brexit becomes our winter’s tale. So I have started stockpiling essential foods and anyone that does not do the same is, in my eyes, gullible and allowing themselves to be misled by politicians who know not what they do.
So in the freezer will go the herring fillets. They say it is going to take three months for a resumption of anything close to normal trading so I will need 13 weeks worth of Minch sgadan fillets for the freezer. Salmon and sausages will spend the winter in the Electrolux too.
Those who do not take similar precautions can stay outside on my doorstep while the majority of this country eventually decide they have been let down by the current political classes and pick their replacements. I am not normally a harbinger of doom but this has got me rattled. There’s no point being caught out and saying we didn’t know. We are getting warnings all the time and we should start listening to them.
My pile will include tinned tuna, which is imported, and frankfurters, which may or not be from Frankfurt in Germany but are usually imported from Sweden and the USA. Tinned macaroni, made of imported Mediterranean pasta, is not the real thing but we’ll need the carbs. Curry sauce, usually made in the UK from Asian ingredients, can go with anything, even tuna in my experience, and baked beans, which are haricot beans also from the USA, will be vital.
So Donald Trump will be controlling the baked beans reaching the UK after Brexit? We cannot stockpile too many tins of them. We will devour them all. They will be needed for breakfast, lunch and tea. Curry? And beans? Oh heck, I’d better stock up on Andrex too. Two-ply is made in England. That’s a relief, except it’s made from wood that comes mainly from Canadian forests. The stress will be unimaginable. How will we be able to wipe our fevered brows?
Mrs X is all talk as well. That wife of mine says the best way to prepare for Brexit is to think about ways to save money. Her latest method is just ridiculous. Because I am now watching more films than before, I have been going on about getting a bigger telly, to make our living room experience as close to the cinema as possible. Yes, popcorn and ice creams at the interval just like the Playhouse in Stornoway in the 1970s. She says we can save money on a bigger set by moving the couch closer to our existing TV.
Are you mad? Now she’s accusing me of causing arguments. I am not arguing but just explaining why I am right. Ach, arguing with a loved one is like reading an online agreement: in the end, you ignore it all and click “I agree”.